


Touch Me, Taste Me, Tell Me I'm Not Fading...

by Firelightmystic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Barebacking, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Body Horror, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, Food Porn, Hallucinations, Haunting, M/M, MCU-2012 Splinterverse, Magic and Science, Mentions of Graverobbing, Mind Control, Mindscrew, Oh My God What's Happening To Tony, Open Ending, Party In The Chaotic Horny Kink Basement, Playing with your food, Porn, Smut, Starvation, Steve Attends The Hannibal Lector Culinary School, Steve Rogers Tops From The Bottom, Supernatural Elements, The Maria Stark Berserk Button, Unreliable Narrator, Unreliable Time Flow, Vampire Bites, Vampire Horror, Vampire Power Shenanigans, Vampiric Thrall, porn with angst, stony sad secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28251660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firelightmystic/pseuds/Firelightmystic
Summary: Steve dies on a Saturday.Steve strolls into the common room’s kitchen Sunday morning like nothing is wrong, and makes himself comfortable at the table.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31
Collections: Stony's Sad Secret Santa





	Touch Me, Taste Me, Tell Me I'm Not Fading...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Diomedes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diomedes/gifts).



> For Diomedes. Merry Christmas! 
> 
> Shout out to the POTS server for putting up with my madness. You guys rock! Special thanks to Bleakloft for the assist! This would’ve been so much worse without you. Take that as you will. ^____^ 
> 
> Warning: There are a lot of alt-text/coding shenanigans at play in this fic, so I’m not entirely sure how mobile-friendly this is. Sorry in advance. To the crew reading this on desktop, and thus exposed to the full magnitude of my nonsense: I’m not sorry. 
> 
> Because mindscrew is in effect almost the entirety of the fic, I slapped the rape/non-con and dub-con tag on here just to be safe.

* * *

Steve dies on a Saturday.

It’s another mission in another winter-ridden European forest looking for Loki and any sign of the Tesseract he ran off with, and the only thing that separates it from the eleven other missions they’ve run since the Chitauri invasion is that the Hydra agents fighting them have _fangs._

Tony’s safe enough in his armor—even vampires can’t bite through the gold-titanium alloy—and he’s not worried about Thor or Hulk, both of whom are more than capable of holding their own.

But Natasha, Clint, and Steve? They’re vulnerable.

So damn vulnerable.

Natasha’s bleeding out from her bite wounds. Clint’s in slightly better shape, but he’s bitten and liable to keel over any moment. Hulk stands guard between them and the oncoming vampires, batting them away and smashing the more determined ones into the earth.

Tony finally sees Steve—he’d lost track of him, fuck, _he’d lost track_ —-but he looks at the too-still figure, the blood spread over the snow and the unnatural angle of the neck, the spine, and knows with a cold certainty that he’s too late. He’s no stranger to death—he _knows._

The world screeches to a halt in horror, and it’s only because of Thor frantically hauling him away and back towards Hulk that he isn’t still standing there _now._

Clint and Natasha are down, and the last thing Tony sees as Thor bodily tosses him into the Quinjet behind Banner, who’s back in control and already snapping out the autopilot commands is a golden beam of light engulfing Thor and the others.

Not Steve, though. He’s too far away.

They leave Steve’s body in the darkness and shadow of the Latverian forest, a new blanket of snow and winter frost shrouding the fallen hero.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no funeral procession, no lying in state.

Steve Rogers had always been for the ice.

**YOU GODDAMNED DISGRACE!**

Tony wakes in a panic, scrabbling at his throat. The chill clench of Howard’s fingers sting as they dig further in, throttling him, his father’s nails filthy with blood and grave-dirt leaving a souvenir of half-moon indentations.

They’ll surely turn infected if they break the skin. Howard’s squeezing hard enough it’s a real possibility.

Tony’s eyes are burning, his head pounds as the blood throbs against his temples, his diaphragm painfully straining as he struggles and writhes and the dead have come for their due at last.

(He’s dying in gasps.)

**HOW DID YOU LET THIS HAPPEN, ANTHONY!?**

(He can’t breathe.)

**PITIFUL! YOU WEREN’T ABLE TO KEEP HIM ALIVE, AND YOU COULDN’T EVEN BRING HIM HOME!**

He hasn’t had a decent lungful of air in what seems like _forever_.

How long has it been?

(He can’t breathe.)

The days blur together, and he doesn’t remember if it’s Monday or Saturday or the next month already.

_He should know this. Steve died on a Friday._

_He should **know** this. _

He finished the Glenfarclas 25 on Saturday, the Dalmore 28 the Thursday past, the Macallan he threw at Howard’s smug fucking head—

(He can’t breathe.)

It’s been so long since he could breathe. Far too long. Not since Afghanistan. Not since the waterboarding and the hole in his chest and the foul cave air and the smoke and munitions fire and the raw desert heat.

( _He can’t breathe!_ )

He wants water, he’s hungry, he’s so, so, hungry, he’s hurting and it burns inside and he can’t get air and the darkness creeps closer, graying the edges of his vision and fuzzing reality around him and he’s drowning/choking/bursting/ _ **help**_

( **He can’t breathe!** )

Just a breath, just a second more, just a breath, a curl of air, it’s been so long, too long.

Not since the Chitauri and the void of space and _falling_ and a brilliant slash of crimson against the snow. Steve’s dead and Tony’s firing wildly at the shadows and horrors in his periphery and 19, 20, 21 shots for the honored dead, this shouldn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t so _weak—_

( _He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t_)

_**It’s a dream, Tony.** _

Tony snaps awake with a stomach roiling in rage and guilt and shame and heaves last night’s dinner onto the floor.

He’s so hungry.

~~He’s changing.~~

~~Something is very wrong.~~

Steve is dead. ~~No, he’s not.~~

He ignores the truth screaming at him, locked away in the darkest recesses of his mind, because Tony can’t— _won’t_ —confront it.

_Steve’s here, but Steve’s dead._

~~That’s not Steve anymore.~~

“ _ **Wake up dear, and say hello to your mother.”**_

Something settles next to him on the bed.

Tony goes still, disbelief warring with pure longing as he pulls in precious air to fight down the panic, the sweet amber and warm spices of Dior’s _Poison_ filling his nostrils. It smells beautiful, like bussed cheeks and lingering hugs, of Sunday brunches and a goodbye he never got to make.

He hates that scent.

(He _loves_ that scent.)

He’s missed it since 1991.

Something inside him _breaks_ and there’s no choking back the sob as cool hands rest daintily on his cheeks and soft lips press a kiss to his forehead.

“...Mamma?”

Maria Stark had been tough—had to be, to deal with Howard—but she’d also been patient and tender, and had always known just how to soothe Tony in his more volatile moments. It’s not been lessened by death. She calmly lifts her arms, the flowing cape sleeves of her white lace and satin burial gown shielding Tony from the rest of the world as he throws himself against her, burrowing his head into her stomach.

A thousand times he’s done this; when he was stressed, when he was angry, when he fought with Howard and came out the worse for wear, when things just never seemed to go the way he wanted. Same as then, his mother shushes him and plays with the curls of his hair, let’s him have a moment to wallow and regroup before patting his cheek. Her signal that the moment was over.

It’s a long moment before Tony is ready—who _could be in this situation_ —but the moment comes and goes, and Tony pushes himself up to look into his mother’s eyes. “This can’t be happening.”

“And yet, here I am. What does that tell you?” Maria tucks her finger under Tony’s chin, turning his head this way and that as she studies him with a proprietary gaze.

“That I’m dreaming.”

“I taught you better than that, Tony. Try it again.”

Tony’s face crumples in sorrow because he _knows_ what to say. His mother is dead, and has been for some time. If she were to return as a ghost, it would have happened decades ago, with near immediacy. Maria had made peace with her death, had been at rest.

For her shade to return now…

Tony braces himself. “Mother, _why are you here_?”

“You’ve asked me that before.”

Tony startles. How!? He’d surely remember such a thing. He’s losing his mind. He’s imagining things. This is _insane!_ He—

_Mother._

Maria frowns at him, cupping his cheek. The touch is faint but so very cold, and goosebumps prickle his skin. “You’ve been bitten, honey.”

“I—no, that’s not possible, I—Steve _couldn’t—”_

“A terrible hunger is upon you.”

Tony wants to deny it, but the strange curdling of his stomach, the growing hunger that he can’t seem to sate even as he feels like he’s starving—those are things not easily overlooked. The only thing more disturbing than the hunger itself, though, is what he suspects might sate it.

He licked the blood from his finger yesterday after he’d pricked it on the tip of a knife.

It was an accident.

~~No, it wasn’t.~~

~~It was delicious.~~

Steve does that.

Steve is dead.

No, he isn’t.

Steve is dead he’s here yes no maybe—

~~he’s dead.~~

_Steve._

**Hello, Shellhead.**

Leave that alone.

He needs to focus.

Maria gestures to the mirror and Tony fights down the sudden, overwhelming urge to smash

it. It’s something there in the back of his eyes when he makes contact with his reflection, something that sets his nerves to stinging like ants swarming their unfortunate target as rage churns like acid in his veins and his lungs constrict. His instincts recoil and Tony is seconds from hurling the kinetic energy sculpture on his nightstand at the mirror when his mother’s chilling caress passes over his cheek, dampening his emotions until he can breathe again.

“You are almost out of time, dear.” Tony follows Maria’s gaze to the reflection of the neat bite mark on his neck. “He’s had his taste, and more than once for you to react so strongly. There is venom in your veins, Anthony.”

Venom.

Tony brushes against the mark, shuddering as a jolt goes through him. His stomach, empty by now, twists and aches—he’s hungry, but there is nothing in the penthouse he wants. Neither food nor drink.

He’s been barricaded up here for hours, days, a week, perhaps; he’s lost all concept of time, and JARVIS doesn’t speak to him anymore. No help there. JARVIS is gone. Where’s JARVIS? JARVIS doesn’t speak to him anymore. No help there. JARVIS. No help. This should terrify him, should drive him wild with fury and fear and he’s floundering and the thoughts run loose and spiral and he needs help he needs—“JARVIS!

There’s no reply.

He wants Steve.

Just thinking of him is soothing, like a shot of morphine in the dark to drag him under and away.

~~Steve is dead.~~

Steve is near.

He needs him.

He wants to relive the hazy memory of soft lips and warm breath over his throat, wants the way his heart pounded as pleasure rushed down his spine and blew through his veins as Steve sucked greedy mouthfuls of his blood. He wants to revisit the ecstatic pleas, the writhing and dizziness and screaming as he shattered again and again as Steve held him down and _feasted…_

“Anthony.”

Tony startles out of his thoughts as his mother stares deep into his eyes.

There is a darkness behind them now, the weighty knowledge of the grave and what lies beyond.

He can’t look away.

~~Don’t stare too deep, the knowledge will burn.~~

He mustn’t look away.

~~So close to understanding. He doesn’t want it.~~

**“Do you know what he did, your _fucking_ _Captain?_ ”**

Tony wakes up screaming.

Clarity always comes at a price.

Steve dies on a Saturday.

Steve strolls into the common room’s kitchen Sunday morning like nothing is wrong, and makes himself comfortable at the table.

“Hello, Shellhead.”

Tony chokes on his coffee, hurls the mug at Steve before he regains his control.

“You’re dead.”

“I’m not.”

Tony demands answers that Steve refuses to give, that sets him on edge and turns him _violent._

There’s a grappling scuffle, fists fly and hissed curses and—

~~and a sharp pain and delicious friction—~~

~~there’s pleas and biting and _surrender—_~~

Tony doesn’t remember anything but howling for JARVIS, running for the elevator as a suit burst through the wall, gold and red fury reducing the kitchen to wreckage behind him.

There’s been nothing since then, no one.

~~Steve’s here, somewhere.~~

Thor is in Asgard, and out of contact.

He took Natasha and Clint with him. They are most likely infected—but if anyone can handle potential vampires, it’s Asgard. Better they remain there than fall under Steve’s sway. The last thing the world needs is a nest of vampiric Avengers.

JARVIS saved him. He remembers dashing for the elevator while a suit held Steve at bay. Steve no doubt ran down the stairs (rightfully suspecting JARVIS would simply trap him in an elevator) to cut him off in the foyer of the tower, and his faithful AI rocketed him to the penthouse and promptly removed all access—no...JARVIS is gone...

JARVIS is offline, somehow; Tony doesn’t know enough to guess what happened, but this is who he suspects: Steve.

It’s a grim situation. Steve is dead yet not, and very much present in the Tower. Bruce is gone—and good. He’s either sought help, or deduced that the Hulk could potentially be infected and removed himself from the equation.

Tony is isolated—is he? He hasn’t heard from Rhodey or Pepper or Happy at all, nor anyone else. That makes no sense—surely he could call them, or email or—or—

Tony shies away from that thought, the migraine that’s been looming at the very edges of his senses dulling down and almost entirely away.

He should be more concerned about that.

And what a distressingly common occurrence that is in his life—the things he doesn’t keep under tight control are the things that always come back to haunt him.

He doesn’t see how he could ever have planned for this.

He should have seen it coming. There’s a familiar stench to all of this.

When he’s actually able to bear tracing things back to the very beginning, it boils down to the two things that have consistently made a ruin of his life: Hydra and Obadiah Stane.

He’d been so certain that they’d cleaned up after Stane’s weapon smuggling. Stane had only cared about guns, bombs, and money and had dismissed the small biochemical division of Stark Industries after his parents’ death. They’d had some moderate success developing medical equipment and field supplies like combat dressings and implantable devices, but it had never generated a large profit for Stark Industries.

In the end, the board hadn’t wanted to pursue expansion into an active subsidiary; why compete with the likes of Medtronic, Boston Scientific, or Brainlab when they had all but cornered their share of the advanced tech and defense markets? It might have been a good move back when Howard was still living, but Howard had focused more on intellicrops than pharmaceuticals, and at its heart, Stark Industries was a weapons company. They dealt in tech _,_ not the wet sciences, and the shareholders were too conservative to accept the sort of fiduciary impact wading in fresh to the pharmaceutical industry would have caused. Not fresh on the heels of the upheaval Howard’s death caused.

What was Tony to say? He was knee-deep in his second Ph.D. and still learning how to manage a division at the time. He wasn’t CEO. Hell, he wasn’t even Vice President of the Research Division, and he’d been camped out there since 1988. Suddenly his parents were gone, he was floundering, and he had this massive company to run years earlier than intended. It was all just...too much. He’d done what he’d always done when he was between a rock and a hard place—let Obie handle it.

He should’ve paid better attention. He should have been more in control.

Howard had died in 1991—Hydra, according to Steve.

Hydra had Howard assassinated so they could steal the serum he’d finally managed to recreate—that morsel of knowledge gleaned from the notes he’d recovered from his SHIELD hack.

It was utterly baffling to Tony that Howard had worked with the likes of Arnim Zola, and he’d paid for it in the end. Several of the pet medical researchers Howard had employed to help him develop a working serum had taken greater liberties with their free reign and done more than just help recreate Erskine’s research.

They’d consulted with sorcerers, various supernatural entities, _actual demons._

The result...the result they’d met in the Latverian wilds.

The Hydra agents they’d encountered were fast—fast enough that they seemed to blur. They were resilient and strong enough to knock Steve and Thor around like they were mere toys. The ~~vampiric venom~~ corrupted serum—enhanced and infused and warped to sinister intent—had made contact with Steve’s bloodstream, and somehow _bonded_ with Steve’s own serum and…

Well.

The results were in his Tower.

Had gone to his mother’s grave and stolen her bones.

Tony winces as the scent of Dior’s _Poison_ fills his nostrils and dizziness rises to overwhelm him. A woman’s scream, a wretched sound full of rage and anguish and thwarted malice claws at the back of his mind, and his skin prickles as he staggers toward the door to his hallway, and the elevator that will take him from his penthouse.

He needs to leave.

He’s needed.

He’s forgetting something, he needs to be elsewhere he needs—he needs—his head throbs, pain beating at his skill like a hammer at an anvil.

Tony veers away from the door, back towards the hidden stairs inside his living room.

His anvil.

He needs his anvil.

A cool brush of air across his forehead, feather-light and soothing like the echo of a mother’s kiss.

* * *

Every task needs the appropriate space.

Tony has his boardroom and an executive office on the 42nd floor of Stark Tower for when he needs to handle SI business (or at least properly cow scheming board members, recalcitrant investors, and nosy journalists).

His workshop is a technological marvel, taking up almost an entire floor all its own. There he designs new tech, weapons, and armor for the Avengers, or upgrades his various suits. It’s his musing room, his workroom, and is his usual haunt when he’s in the Tower.

His craft room, however?

That’s special.

His craft room, accessible only through his personal living space, is where the magic literally happens, insofar as he is willing to call it that. Applied metaphysics is much more palatable—and accurate. Tony hates magic—there is technology and physics and _rules_ to the universe, and magic implies that those rules can be broken. Magic is reckless and unpredictable, and cannot be accurately accounted for. Tony has no qualms with what he likes to categorize as “sufficiently advanced science”, but _magic?_

Magic is how you get sorcerers running amok, or idiots summoning demons that they have no business consorting with. It’s what drives dead mothers from their graves and turns treasured comrades into vampires.

Tony hates magic, and what he does in his craft room is not that.

Tony is, first and foremost, a smith, and his craft room reflects it.

The entire floor is pure African Blackwood, a perfect conduit between the physical and metaphysical, and excellent for work with energies classically associated with death. The walls are also paneled in blackwood, and the east and west walls are covered in floor to ceiling shelves containing a vast assortment of liquids, powders, plant clippings, stones, and crystals. The north wall houses miniature bars of the highest quality alchemical metals (excepting the mercury—that’s in a massive jar and tightly sealed). It’s no Fort Knox, but the bars of gold alone are enough to make a dragon salivate.

It’s the silver and iron he’s after. Those are the metals to put a permanent end to a problem, and the four electric foundries on the left side of his anvil are put to work, melting down two bars of each.

The Merchant of Death, they had called him once upon a time, and Tony supposes that his detractors had the right of it. Tony has _always_ had a knack for death—is a genius in the field. He has a pedigree a mile long, after all, thanks to his family, and not simply because of Howard.

The Carbonells had mastered the art of death centuries before a Stark ever designed a trigger.

Credit where it was due, though: Howard Stark had been a weaponsmith without peer. That is, at least, until Tony had been born.

He realizes now, two decades and a box of film reels held hostage by SHIELD later that his father had never quite known what to make of that. Howard’s spark of genius had blazed like a star in Tony, and his father obsessively nurtured and jealously dampened it in turns, raising him in a fury of love and resentment that Tony was still unraveling emotions about to this day.

There was another hand at work in his upbringing, however, a master’s touch far more subtle and deadly than Howard would have ever believed—if he’d ever known at all.

Maria Collins Carbonell Stark was a genius and a weaponsmith in her own right, and while she might have married into a family of ironmongers, she never—quite literally—forgot her roots. The Carbonells had poisoned their way through four noble houses, two popes, and a Sorcerer Supreme before the rest of the magical community realized they had a _Problem_ on their hands and purged over three-quarters of their line.

The surviving Carbonells never regained their status, but neither did their craft falter, passed on from generation to generation in secret and shadow, because all knowledge was worth having.

In case it was needed.

In case it was wanted.

(In case the world needed _reminding._ )

Thus Maria, who brewed toxin, coaxed venom from snakes and spiders, and let death bloom in the fertile grounds of her garden. He spent his daylight hours mastering his father’s science, his evenings at his mother’s side learning the darker, quieter cruelties of his ancestral craft, and in the blending of the two discovered how to forge horrors.

For a price.

For the right reasons.

Tony’s both deeply knowledgeable and ghoulishly proud of his family’s treachery—the Carbonells dispensed with kith and kin as easily as rivals—and he’d cut his teeth on the choicest morsels of their mayhem growing up and taken it all to heart. He’s followed in the family tradition and where Stark money won’t keep his secrets, fear of the Carbonell in him will. There is no one Tony considers off-limits

He’s a salvager, a fixer, and he’s certain he could somehow unwind what’s happened to Steve with enough time and research...but

_**You cannot truly kill with something never alive, and that which is dead will never fear metal. Wood, dear, to channel life against death.** _

_Anathema_ were powerful things, artifacts forged from the most powerful of curses. They were specifically crafted to affect a particular target and were hideously difficult to create. And rightfully so; it shredded the soul as well as the body. It was the sum totality of true death; a final, horrible, end. It took vast amounts of energy, resources, and skill, and more importantly than that, it took _emotion._ A person didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to literally hate something out of existence—an Anathema was forged of deliberate intent, an irritant shaped and honed and refined over time into something exquisite, much like a pearl.

His mother died in pain and horror, an assassin’s afterthought, and the monster in Steve’s body ( ~~it wasn’t Steve, Steve was dead)~~ had _desecrated her grave and stolen her bones,_ and in the process destroyed her final rest. The _indignity._ The sheer _gall._

She’d deserved better, and he’ll be damned if he lets this stand.

His _mother._

_**Cold iron, for human strength and obstinacy, the bane of the supernatural. Silver, the poison of that which is unholy, to see the act done.** _

Tony’s hands aren’t clean. He’s killed before, both on purpose and accidentally. This though...this isn’t weapons he designed in the wrong hands, or literally battling his way out of a cave for his survival. This isn’t fighting off an invading alien army or dealing with murderous Hydra agents. This is Tony, deliberately deciding to _kill_ , and someone he trusted.

Someone he might have even loved.

Rage and indignation will see him through where resolve falters. This _has_ to be done, not just to resolve his mother’s unrest, but because Steve has _never_ worked alone. Steve has a way of...rallying people to his causes. Tony doubts Steve is going to return to the European wilds to frolic with the vampire neo-nazi Hydra agents—and quite honestly he expects that Steve quite gleefully murdered the whole lot of them before returning to the Tower—but Steve has stolen his mother’s bones to recreate Howard’s serum, and it doesn’t take a genius (even if he is one) to figure out his next move from there.

Steve has a pattern, after all.

Steve Rogers does not operate solo. He draws people into his orbit and turns them into accomplices and followers. Allies. Steve’s natural inclination is to clamber on up his high horse, rile up a group of people and _start a gang._ A do-gooding gang of rogues and scoundrel, perhaps, but a gang.

What started with Bucky Barnes grew into Bucky Barnes, Peggy Carter, and Howard Stark.

Grew into the Howling Commandos.

Barely out of the ice, and then there were aliens and Avengers, which almost immediately resulted in the Avengers cutting ties with Shield after Steve fought his...alternate self?...clone?...evil doppelganger?

Regardless, Steve fought himself, discovered Bucky was still alive and—after more delving—discovered Shield was infested with Hydra agents.

They’d banded together and followed Steve through hell, high water, and to his death.

Undeath.

Steve’s going to be slinging vampire venom like it was E-time at Club USA.

Tony can’t help but wonder if Natasha and Clint are okay. Where is Thor—he’s heard nothing from Asgard since that ill-fated mission. Nothing from Bruce.

He’s alone.

No, Steve’s here.

That’s _not a good thing._

(Don’t go down this road again. This doesn’t end well.)

He’s so tired, so hungry.

_Maybe just a quick nap._

~~Sleep and it’s all over.~~

Focus!

The ache in his head fades away as cool air passes over his head, a waft of Dior’s Poison.

_Mother._

Tony lets out a pained roar of frustration and funnels his tempest of emotion into the fall of his hammer, letting it all pour funnel in.

The metal takes form, rounding and tapering down into a perfect instrument of destruction. The grip is a silver double helix with tumbled amethyst, sapphire, and clear quartz stones embedded in the middle of each section until it reaches the tiny silver crossguard. African Blackwood comprises the stake itself, twin veins of cold iron and silver winding around the sides until all three components meet in a viciously sharp point.

Life, protection, healing, positivity. The energies are complementary and bolster each other, contained within a tool that is both elegant and functional. Tony can almost hear his mother’s approving hum. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever made.

It screams for blood, for death, when he holds it. His heart pounds and his neck burns and his hands flex, longing to plunge it into Steve’s chest. The urge rises with every burning breath, and Tony realizes with a start that his teeth are gritted.

 _The best weapon is the one you only have to fire once._ He can almost taste the whiskey on the back of his tongue, swears he can hear the low whistle Howard only ever gave when he was impressed.

_**Bold move. But you’re playing at something you’re not ready for, boy.** _

_**You’re still a mama’s boy at heart, after all this time. You aren’t a killer. Not like you need to be, for something like this.** _

Fuck you too, Howard.

The anathema sits perfectly in his hands, lightweight and almost possessed of a will of its own, his arm swinging unconsciously in a striking arc.

Tony doesn’t doubt the anathema will find its way home. He doesn’t need to think. Not with something like this. Up and to the left of the sternum.

All he has to do is close his eyes and let go.

It’s the ugliest thing he ever made.

_**Bathe it in sunlight on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day, within a circle of blessed salt. Imbue it with power and holy light.** **Bathe it in moonlight on the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day, within a circle of black salt. Imbue it with protection and sacred dark.** _

The hours come and go like thieves in the night, slipping by between blinks and stolen snippets of rest. He can’t sleep, mustn’t sleep, and he can’t remember the last time he felt rested at all. He remembers screaming and choking and the scent of death and failure and behind it all a sip of blood and hunger pangs shredding his stomach apart.

He’s so very hungry and so very tired, and he’s trapped, worse than he ever was in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was desert heat and freezing nights in a cave, but there was Yinsen to keep him company, keep him sane, keep him focused, and the monsters were known and omnipresent. There was laughter and jeering and the thrum of life, always some sort of noise and the crackle of the fire and the hiss of the forge.

He’d been a dead man walking, but not alone.

Tony shudders and pours another double of Rhum Clement.

He doesn’t remember drinking any of the other seven shots. But he remembers the pouring. The seven empty shot glasses speak to that much. The warm burn in his chest, the aged sugar on his tongue, and the mellow burn of a rum left to gain its footing.

It’s _sublime._

He retches into the trashcan, a ghastly episode that feels like he’s emptying his soul. He heaves, almost forcing it out at the end, stomach roiling at the thought of anything left in there.

He does his best to ignore the lack of anything solid, winces and turns away from the trashcan and it’s contents before he gets sick all over again. The water from the bar sink removed the worst of the taste from his mouth, leaving him feeling a little less gritty.

It reminds him that he’s so thirsty.

When he drinks water, all he can smell is the bottle’s plastic, all he can taste is dirt and chemicals and it’s horrible. He doesn’t dare try the tap.

He’s hungry. There is food in the fridge, but the thought of eggs makes his stomach twist, the leftovers smell rank and even if they hadn’t gone off by now, his brain shies away from them. He doesn’t want it.

There is a pack of steaks in the fridge. He almost grabbed it and ate it raw this...this morning? (This evening? There go those hours, slipping by him again).

It would have tasted amazing. He can feel his mouth water, just thinking about it. But he knows better than to eat Nothing stays down, and it would have probably been spoiled by now anyway.

Maybe.

~~He just really wanted the blood.~~

He thinks maybe he should be more concerned about the salmonella, but it’s so far down his list of priorities.

He _wants._

He’s starving.

He hurls his shot glass at the wall, the noise of shattering glass soothing something ugly and petty inside of him.

He’s slipping away.

It’s just him, now.

“I’m still here.”

“Go away, Steve. You’re dead.”

“Let me in, Tony. I thought you hated the quiet.”

Steve can’t be here. Focus Tony. It’s just him, in his penthouse.

“JARVIS, turn on some music, would you?”

The silence _kills._

Tony pours another drink. Slams it back. Retches a few minutes later.

He buries his head in his hands and _weeps._

Tony wakes up on the floor, afternoon given way to night, and night to the early dawn. He can hear the bustle of the city around him, coming in oh so faintly through the sound blocking walls.

So. He’s not dead yet.

He lies there for a while, staring up at his ceiling. He knows, somehow, that he will be dead by morning. Today is a very important day for him.

Tony’s lips quirk, imagining Yinsen’s wry commentary. He gets up like an old man, first one leg then the other, his limbs weak and momentarily unsteady. He almost faceplants, tripping over the full bottle of Rhum Clement.

How the hell did it get down there?

Tony kicks it aside and makes a mental note to pick it up later.

He’s got business to tend to. He’s rested, ready, and determined.

Tony walks into his foyer, the anathema lightweight and beautiful and burning a hole in his pocket, practically howling to be used, to be plunged into its intended victim’s heart.

The wall explodes in a mess of plaster, twisted metal, and—

Tony snaps awake, coughing and hacking and choking under the scent of _sick_ and decay and spilled alcohol.

“Hello, Shellhead.”

Tony barely has a chance to register horror before Steve’s fist smashes into his face.

* * *

“You’re far too much trouble, Tony.”

The statement itself is almost playful, and Tony might have a sarcastic quip ready to fling back under better circumstances, but right now? Right now he’s soul-weary and numb and half certain he’s losing his mind, and Steve isn’t exactly careful with the way he’s waving that staggeringly large knife around.

It takes a lot of levity out of the situation.

Not that there’s much levity to be found in Steve running around as a vampire in the first place.

Fuck.

_Steve._

_There’d been so much blood…_

Blood.

It’s the theme of the night, it seems.

As if to contrast the luxuriant gloom of the dining room—or, perhaps, to accent it—the meal is red, red as wine, ~~red as arterial blood on unblemished snow…~~

The plates are trendy squares of delicate porcelain, muted gold in shade and chilled to the touch, a decadent scarlet feast painstakingly laid out before him. He’s always been a steak man, and it’s a cut any connoisseur would’ve happily murdered for—planked Châteaubriand, shaped in a heart because even undead abominations could be romantic. Bleu-rare, the meat obviously _exquisite_ , and while Tony leans toward the medium-rare end of the spectrum, he’s had his dalliances on the cooler side of the grill, so to speak. Tony wrests his gaze away from the steak, takes in the neat square of salmon tartare topped with red caviar, the red bell pepper ring housing a thick mound of melted red windsor cheese atop a bed of crisp, red slaw.

It’s a culinary masterpiece, and Tony wants it. He wants it _so badly._

But.

But nothing stays down.

Coffee churns in his stomach, acidic and bitter. Bread tastes like sawdust, meat is gritty, and the shredding and grinding and chewing grates on his nerves, sets his teeth on edge. Canned food tastes like mush and metal, fresh vegetables taste like dirt, and carbonated _anything_ devastates his throat.

It’s as if his body simply rejects everything.

But this? This looks exquisite, and Tony doesn’t trust anything to do with Steve these days—he _can’t._

He _aches_ with hunger.

He doesn’t dare eat.

Steve’s lips curl in a sinister grin, slow and wicked, as he leans across the table and slides a crystal bowl filled with Andalusian gazpacho towards him.

“Eat up, Shellhead.”

The abomination has no right sounding so silkenly cordial, so teasing, as if they are striking up with a dear friend. Steve is even wearing a _suit_. A dove white suit, neatly tailored to accentuate Steve’s broad shoulders and tapered waist, a rose pink and white checkered tie in an Eldredge knot tucked into the light gray vest with mother of pearl buttons. A pair of matching pink diamond cufflinks catch the light as Steve nudges a spoon towards him (he’d confiscated the knife after Tony had thrown it at him, but hadn’t managed to snag the fork).

_What in the fresh Anne Rice hell…?_

Tony stares in horror at the grotesque apparition placidly watching him from the opposite end of the table, blue eyes cold with malice and glinting with promised violence. It’s the gaze of a starving predator, and Tony can’t help but shudder, entirely at a loss for words and not quite sure if he should just run screaming from the room or blink so that it would disappear when he opened his eyes.

 _Or maybe,_ his treacherous mind supplies, _if you close your eyes for even half a second, he—it—will kill you outright._

Steve tilts his wine glass towards him in a slight salute, as if acknowledging that Tony’s worries are justified, then raises it to his lips, savoring it as he drinks.

Wine! It was wine, it was wine, _it was_ _wine._

Wine had never been so thick, had never stained glass so vibrantly red along the sides.

Steve licks his lips as he lowers the glass, a hint of fang exposed in the glow of candlelight.

Tony forgets himself, repulsed by the visceral reminder that Steve isn’t human, isn’t _alive,_ ~~that he’s so hungry,~~ and jerks his gaze back down to the table, unwilling to bear witness to the macabre horror that Steve has become. Overbearing malevolence falls heavy over the intimate setup and Tony snaps his gaze back up, quick enough that he catches the fleeting remains of a ghastly snarl as Steve’s expression settles back into pleasant nonchalance.

Tony’s resolve weakens and he wants to eat, but he knows that will spell his undoing—he knows his lore, and it’s always that voluntary surrender of humanity, that final step that seals the fall, but it’s so tempting and smells so wonderful and he’s _starving—_

_Wake up!_

Tony jolts and his mind is racing and he’s skirting the edge of something awful, and he realizes his hand is halfway to the salmon tartare and he _can almost taste it—_ Tony rams the fork he’d secreted away into his thigh, the tines breaking through his black slacks and through his skin in a dull burst of pain that rapidly sharpens as a fiery prickling radiates from the site of the injury.

Clarity bursts across his senses, and Tony reels as he takes in the table, takes in _Steve,_ with renewed perception.

He’s done himself no favors.

The scent of fresh tomato basil soup is gradually overpowered by the stench of decay and blood, by sharp arctic air and sodden grave-dirt.

No, not tomatoes at all...holy shit. Steve is trying to feed him blood…

Has...has this happened before? How many times? The pinpricks on his neck burn and Tony feels a chill go down his spine. He’d been warned, hadn’t he? He’s _changing,_ and further along than he can understand...Tony feels his gorge rise and throws the bowl of soup against the wall. The sound of porcelain breaking is muted by the accompanying slosh of liquid and the grotesque suctioning splat of congealed blood and clumps of organ meat.

His unwanted dinner guest smirks, as if fully cognizant of what Tony has done to clear his senses. “Cheater.”

Who did Steve kill, to organize this dinner?

Tony’s thoughts immediately go to Rhodey and Pepper, to Happy.

_Please, oh fuck please, not them._

Tony doesn’t think it’s them—doesn’t think this monster in Steve’s skin would go so far—but how is he to know for certain? Tony has no basis for comparison, no benchmarks—this is Steve, but not, and turned into something new.

That same instinct, though, the one that screams at him that he’s in danger, that lets him know he isn’t losing his mind somehow? That same instinct tells him it’s not them.

It’s someone else.

Tony is relieved and hates himself for it.

A fly buzzes in the background, the pitched drone of flight traversing the room with startling speed, first in the far corner, over towards the stagnant fountain water, then irritatingly close to the table. Tony shoos it away, breaks his gaze for a moment to make sure it’s gone.

It’s a moment too long.

Steve is out of the dining chair and almost about to lunge across the table, ready to attack, ready to strike, trying to finally kill him.

The anathema tugs at his dulled senses and Tony frantically pats at his black vest, his black suit jacket, before he feels it cold and thrumming with energy along his arm. He tucked it up his sleeve!

~~Tony doesn’t remember wearing sleeves.~~

~~Doesn’t remember being in a suit.~~

~~Why would Steve be stupid enough to _leave this with him?_~~

~~His head hurts. He can’t focus.~~

~~Leave it alone, stay in the here and now.~~

~~Don’t chase down that trail...~~

Tony snaps the anathema out of his sleeve with a sharp jerking motion and angles it toward Steve, who hisses and recoils, backing away until he is seated once more. He sneers at the anathema Tony is holding up to ward him off.

“Will you kill me, then?”

 _Can_ he kill Steve? Tony’s hand trembles as he wars internally with himself.

For his part, Steve looks disgusted, and Tony isn’t sure if it’s because he’s crafted the anathema, or because he can’t seem to muster up the last shred of resolve he needs to _use it._

“Hiding behind an anathema, and you don’t even have the resolve to use it. Pathetic.”

Well, that answers that question.

_Dammit boy, you don’t design a weapon unless you can stomach seeing the damage it causes, and you sure as fuck don’t pull a weapon unless you’re prepared to use it!_

Fuck off, Howard.

_He’s right, you know._

You shut the fuck up too, Not-Steve.

Tony freezes in shock, his brown eyes snapping up to meet Steve’s azure blue gaze. It feels like drowning in still arctic water, like being seen and pulled apart and _known._

“I _do_ know you, Tony. I’ve seen you at your lowest, and brilliant in your magnificence. I see that true self you keep locked away, the pitiless killer that you desperately pretend doesn’t exist. You fear yourself, and I can smell it on you. Cowardice doesn’t become you at all.”

Tony grips the Anathema tighter, willing the tremble out of his hand.

“Do you think dabbling in mediocrity will make you loved? That your subservience to people who both envy and hate you for daring to be better than them makes you _good_?”

Steve stands up, his white shoes squelching as he walks through the spilled “food” to loom over Tony.

Shit! Too close!

Tony brandishes the anathema, but he’s already faltering. _Can he?_ Can he _actually_ kill Steve?

“You would’ve done it already,” Steve assures him, knocks the anathema aside, and Tony watches it skitter across the floor harmlessly. He hears a faint noise like a woman screaming but can’t pay it any mind, too focused on Steve. Steve always has had a way of commanding his attention like little else.

Steve cups Tony’s jaw, presses a kiss to Tony’s brow, follows the trail of a bead of sweat down the bridge of his nose with feather-light pecks and then kisses him full on the lips, shattering Tony in gentle increments as he gives him everything he’s been wanting since the Chitauri invasion, everything he’s dreamed off and longed for and never quite knew how to get. It’s what he’s been wanting since he woke up from the portal to see bright eyes and a relieved grin saying they won.

He wants this, wants it so badly.

He can’t have this.

This isn’t Steve anymore, isn’t the friend and comrade who he’d loved and lost before he’d even had a chance. This is a killer—someone is _dead_ , maybe more than one person. This is a graverobber, and Tony knows—he _knows_ —that there will be more vampires if Steve gets his way.

 _“Exactly,”_ Steve murmurs against his lips. “You first, because I need you. Because you’ve always been mine even when you refuse to say it. there is no mind capable of matching yours, and you and I together will be unstoppable.”

The confession is there, being drawn out of him in between tongues and lips and teeth, the air being coaxed out of his lungs as his head swims and _he’s never been half as good at anything as when he’s doing it next to Steve_ and he’s being pulled up out of his chair and pressed tight against Steve’s body.

He tries to wriggle free, writhing in Steve’s grasp as he deepens the kiss, rebelling even as he kisses him back, greedily stealing bits of a moment he can’t keep as he fights a losing battle to keep his wits about him—he lost this battle a long time ago he thinks—and his lungs are burning and his pulse is racing and he feels like he’s falling, floating, slipping away, _fight damn you_ and the fork—the heavy baroque dinner fork with the sapphire stone nestled between the filigree—it’s still in his hands and Tony tightens his grip around the handle and _strikes,_ ramming it into Steve’s side.

Steve jolts, loosens his grasp, and it’s enough, just enough for Tony to seize the advantage and he darts away, slips around the table and flips it over, the cacophony of breaking dishes and clattering serving trays and shattering crystal shocking him to awareness.

Tony ignores Steve’s outraged roar and lunges across the room for the anathema, the handle sticking out from under the edge of the armchair.

He almost makes it.

Steve’s heavy bulk slams into him, tackling him to the ground, and they roll, Tony kicking and yelling and punching, and for all he knows how to throw a punch and has formal martial arts training under his belt, he’s not a match for Steve, who’s stronger and heavier and a _brawler._ Steve’s always been one to get punched _and lean into it_ , tanking the blow to get closer into his target’s space, get his hands on them because it’s all over if Steve gets you in his grasp.

It registers finally as the lack of pain catches up to him. Steve’s not fighting him back—the ripping and the tearing is the sound of _his fucking clothes being reduced to shreds._

His chest is bared, his black vest and black shirt hanging in bits and pieces off his arm.

His neck—

Realization and horror arrive, moments too late. Steve grabs his wrists in his larger hands, forcing his arms down as he pins Tony in place with his weight.

“I love it when you fight.”

Steve’s grin is chaotic, eyes alight with dark glee because he’s won.

He knows he’s won, knows _Tony_ knows he’s won.

Steve lets out a pleased hum when Tony bucks up against him, trying to force him off, and grinds down instead.

Well, hello there inopportune erection.

Tony’s been too focused lately on not getting eaten alive and trying to string a coherent thought together to find time to think about how much he wants to fuck Steve through the nearest surface—which is constantly—but he’s got 250 lbs. of vampire Steve settled in his lap, and apparently, a good tussle gets him going. Almost as much as winning does—Tony’s observant and he knows that grin well—it’s on Steve’s face every time he watches a Hydra base go up in flames, or he pisses off a bigot, or he gets Tony up in arms and verbally tongue-tied when they argue.

Rhodey had laid money on it a long time ago—$250—that Tony’s cause of death would be sex-related.

This is dangerous, do not fuck the evil vampire that is literally ready to eat then kill you.

Kill and eat him?

Tony knows he should be concerned that he can’t decide which order that’s going in, but he’s more fixated on the fact that Steve is lowering his head to Tony’s waist, letting his tongue trace up the ridge of his abdomen to dip into the muscles of his six-pack.

Tony’s breath hitches as the sharp point of Steve’s canines trace over the contours of his stomach, up and up until he’s hovering over his right pectoral, watching the way his nipple reacts to the proximity.

Steve’s hands are like steel bands, keeping him pinned to the floor as he latches on to the prickling nub with too-sharp teeth. Tony arches beneath Steve, bucks and writhes and squirms as he licks and sucks and teases. The sensation is almost too much, his nipple throbbing and burning from the attention, sharp flutters of pleasure in his stomach warring with the pulsing of his cock as Steve moves with and against him, chasing more of the groans and soft murmurs, all the more intense for the undercurrent of active danger.

This can and _will_ turn at any moment.

He thinks he doesn’t care anymore. He’s being gentled under Steve’s skilled torment, being lulled into a haze of desire and want and need as Steve switches to his left nipple, the cool, open-air drying the saliva on his right, and Tony couldn’t hold back the low, aching plea for more as his eyes fluttered close—

He yells when Steve bites down over his left areola, his hips snapping up to rub his cock against Steve’s ass, unable to do anything else but let himself be flayed apart by the sensation as Steve drinks. It hurts, a sharp ache in his pec that burns around the insertion points Steve’s fangs, but behind that ache is the ebb and flow of warm pleasure as Steve draws more and more of his blood out, and a dizzying sort of haze that settles over him as venom replaces it.

Steve pulls back just enough to lap up the trickle of blood before he presses bloody kisses across his collarbone, settling back over his right pectoral again. Tony practically begs for the bite this time, adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows thickly in anticipation, surrendering in murmured pleas and sighs when Steve finally kisses the upper ridge of the muscles then bites down.

It’s wonderful—no! Not wonderful, no, he isn’t supposed to be enjoying this, it’s awful and—and—Tony shudders and rocks against Steve, twisting uselessly against his restraining hands, mouth falling open in a soundless scream as he drowns under a heady whirl of sensation.

When Steve finally releases his bite Tony hunches in on himself, disgusted with his lack of resolve, his inability to halt his almost instinctual fall under Steve’s sway.

“I’ll kill you.”

“You won’t,” Steve whispers into his ear, Tony’s blood on his breath and poisoned honey on his lips, “you cant. You _like_ _it_.”

Steve lets his wrists go, and the truth is there in the way Tony _does absolutely nothing, damn him._

Steve’s fingers trail over his hair, brush down his cheek, and then curled lightly around his throat, his voice gentle and poisonous as he takes advantage of the tangle of tension and fixation and emotion between them and uses it to far more debilitating effect than even the anathema could be capable of.

“Let me make you mine, Tony.” He lifts Tony’s chin with the crook of his finger, staring deep into his soul as he twists the verbal knife with exquisite precision. _“Nobody else wants you, after all.”_

The resentment comes easily enough. Thor left him behind—he took Natasha and Clint, but not him—Bruce _abandoned him,_ and he’s heard nothing from Pepper or Rhodey since any of this began. Not even Happy, and Happy gets paranoid if there’s no sort of contact after 12 hours ever since the Reno debacle back in ‘01.

~~Where’s JARVIS?~~

_Focus._

Steve’s eyes melt black as Tony stares into them, ~~THAT’S NOT RIGHT~~ beautiful abyssal pools of midnight blue as he leans in with a quiet purr. “God, but you wear misery so well.”

He strikes in a blur, wrenching Tony’s head to the side so hard it almost cracks and sinks his teeth into Tony’s throat.

Tony howls in pain and shoves against Steve’s chest, once, twice, then his fingers bunch into the fabric of Steve’s suit as he sucks and a bolt of pure ecstasy sizzles down his neck, blows through his veins his, muscles, his spine, pools low in his cock until its grown rock-hard and heavy in his pants, a rigid bulge that’s pressing against his fly.

There’s no stopping the quaking moans and shudders as Steve drinks deeply, guzzling more and more of his blood, velvet curls of poisonous delight and liquid heat winding slowly through his veins from the mess of endorphins and venom playing havoc with his overwhelmed senses. Steve’s equally gone on it all, slurping and sucking and lapping at the wound he’s created, slaking his thirst with fixed determination.

The air is thick with the scent of sweat and lust and blood, and Tony’s been reduced to breathy gasps and hitching moans that rapidly morph into broken, softly desperate noises as Steve takes, and takes, and _takes._

Steve’s own wanton, greedy noises mingle with his own in a carnal duet that is punctuated by the clinking of buckles and ripping and tugging and shifting and by the time Tony’s able to swim above the high and the demanding _need,_ Steve’s gotten them both naked.

Steve licks at Tony’s throat, staunching the flow of blood. His tongue is dark red with blood when it darts out to lick clean the messy smear of blood, and Tony convulses with the sudden, visceral need to _taste._

Steve looks smug as hell about it, rolls them both over so that Tony is on top, rocks up against Tony as if to urge him to action, and Tony can’t help but sulk because he wants to take in that glorious expanse of muscle, the pale skin and chiseled perfection. Some sights deserve being burned into memory.

Steve laughs wickedly. “I love the way you always look at me like it’s the first time.”

There’s something wrong with that statement.

“You _always_ look at me like it’s the first time.”

Tony frowns, frowns deeper at the flash of mischief in Steve’s eyes. The first time…

~~Steve is practically howling as he breaks apart on his cock, Tony pounding the orgasm out of him with thrust after punishing thrust, unable to do anything but comply but as Steve demands more and more and _more—_~~

Wait.

Wait, what?

~~Tony comes with a choked wail as Steve continues to ride him, after his own pleasure now, and Tony wants to beg him to stop, has to plead that he can’t take anything more, but that’s a lie because behind that rough electric crackle of over-sensitization is a churn of sheer bliss, and it’s that curl of delight he pursues with dogged fixation until he and Steve are just _using_ each other, blowing past boundaries and limitations towards a soul-wrecking climax—~~

Tony’s going to flip out any minute now, he knows it, he’s missing memories, losing time, losing track—

_“Checkmate.”_

Tony’s eyes widen in horror as he stares down at Steve’s triumphant expression.

“Three times surrendered, three times mine. You must be _so hungry_ by now, Tony.”

“Steve?” His voice comes out slow and wary, the ache in his stomach back and almost forcing him to double over, it’s so strong…

“ _Focus_ , Stark.”

Tony gasps as Steve rocks up against his cock, his hole already slick and Tony could just glide right in, couldn’t he?

What the fuck?

Steve sees the question in his eyes and pats his cheek patronizingly. “You’re always so meticulous, Tony. Searching for just the right lube, eating me out until I’m open enough for your sensibilities, stretching me open like you’re trying to get your fist in me. It’s adorable, but I thought that this time, I’d do us both a favor and prep myself.

“Now—” Steve’s hand trails up his cheek to grab a thick handful of his hair and yank his head down, “put your back into it, Avenger.”

Tony wants to, wants to thrust in and kiss and touch and _oh, he’s wanted this so damn much **,**_ and it’s all so wrong because this only ends in him dead or unmade or both—and he isn't sure which is worse—isn't sure if he’s losing his goddamn mind, isn’t sure if he even truly cares at the end of the day because it’s _Steve_.

He’s always known he’d take any piece of Steve the man deigned to toss his way, a dog begging scraps from the proverbial table.

He’s _pitiful._

It’s so easy, such a relief, to surrender.

_Do you see?_

Tony lets his eyes drift closed and parts his lips, weary of fighting and doubting himself and _denying himself,_ and it’s Steve, after all. He never had a chance.

He’s so tired and so hungry and _so damn thirsty._

A tear falls from his eye, splattering onto Steve’s throat.

Steve digs a fingernail— _a claw—_ into his neck and slices, opening up a cut deep enough to get a steady flow going.

Tony latches on to Steve’s neck with a sob, slams into him with a rough snap of his hips that punches a maniacal laugh of triumph out of the vampire, and knows he’s lost.

The most disastrous poisons aren’t the ones that kill, but the ones that _addict,_ the ones that dig their claws into your brain and never let go. The addictions drive a man to kill, to steal, to throw aside all reason and morality for the next hit, and there is no wine, no drug, no perfect sin quite like Steve’s blood.

The warm liquid slides down his throat, a metallic hint of copper behind a snap of ripened apple and dark sweetness, and Tony’s shelled out thousands for 100-year old ports that couldn’t hold a candle to this. Steve lets out a happy murmur of pleasure and yanks at Tony’s hair, keeps him drinking as he wraps his other hand over Tony’s waist and tugs, urging him to thrust harder, and harder still.

Steve’s little burbles of delight deepen into rough, ecstatic screams as Tony hits that perfect bundle of nerves and hones in, striking it again and again and again, a slave to Steve’s demands. Steve’s orgasm seemed to slam into him like a trainwreck, and Tony wants to pause, wants to watch, but Steve hisses for more, hisses for him to keep going, keep _drinking_ , and Tony thinks he’s drowning as he chokes down mouthful after mouthful, thinks he’s going to lose whatever shred of his wits he still has left when Steve clenches down and squeezes tight on his cock, coming untouched in heavy spurts that land in hot splatters on his stomach, on his chest.

Steve smears it into Tony’s skin, his cries reaching a fever pitch as Tony continues to thrust into him. Tony wants to come, wants to fall off this precipice he’s trapped on, but Steve is implacable, urging him on and on as Tony sobs wetly between gulps, lets Steve make a mess, _make a_ _ruin_ of him as he continues to sink into that unbearable tightness, fucking more and more splatters of come out of Steve’s still-heavy cock as the vampire croons dark obscenities into his shoulder, digs his hand into his back and _claws_ , Tony growling at the stinging burn.

Steve’s voice breaks on a final scream and Tony isn’t sure if Steve has come again or simply finished up, but he’s aching with his own need to come. Steve lets out a satisfied sigh and pulls Tony’s head away from his neck with a quiet order to “lick”, and then rolls them over, silencing Tony’s desperate protests and entreaties with a kiss.

Tony sinks into the kiss with a relieved moan and grabs on to Steve’s hips, slams back up into him with a shaky cry.

“Harder, Tony, I want to feel you in me, want you deep in me, like _I am in you—”_

Steve meets him thrust for thrust, and Tony is screaming, can feel his throat burning raw with it, with his sobs as he loses more and more of himself with every piston of his hips.

There is an inferno raging in his veins now, too hot to bear, far past tolerance, but every burst of pleasure pushes it away, and it’s a race against ecstasy and hell, and he’s coming and he’s shattering apart and— _and_ —

_and he’s dying—_

_and he’s **damned**._

* * *

Tony wakes with a stomach roiling in rage and guilt and shame and _desperate need_ and heaves last night’s dinner onto the floor.

~~He doesn’t remember eating.~~

He’s changing.

He hears the truth screaming at him, locked away in the darkest recesses of his mind because Tony can’t— _won’t_ —confront it.

He’s not strong enough for that. Not yet.

_Steve._

Damn him.

Damn him and his dreams and his eyes.

Damn him and the dark, earthy sweetness that poisons the first minute of every day he wakes.

A woman is wailing—his _mother’s_ wailing, he can hear it, and as he focuses in on the soul-wrenching cries they morph into raucous laughter— _Steve’s_ laughter—and the thought comes unbidden.

_Maybe JARVIS wasn’t keeping Steve out._

_Maybe he was keeping **me** in. _

The anathema is lying next to him on the bed, neatly snapped in half.

Tony curls in on himself, screams his despair into the mound of pillows and twisted sheets.

_He’s so hungry._

**Author's Note:**

> "Close your eyes, beloved. I'll most likely kill you in the evening." Steve presses a kiss to Tony's lips, nudges him back towards sleep, towards forgetfulness, towards the unyielding hunger and inevitable breaking.


End file.
